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Article: Field experiments on eggshell removal by mountain plovers.
- Article from:
- The Wilson Journal of Ornithology
- Article date:
- March 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Wilson Ornithological Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Shortly after their young hatch, many birds remove the empty eggshells and dispose of them away from the nest (Nethersole-Thompson and Nethersole-Thompson 1942, Skutch 1976). This behavior is well developed in charadriiform birds, including shorebirds and gulls. In their classic paper, Tinbergen et al. (1962) suggested five possible hypotheses for the adaptive value of eggshell removal behavior: (1) eggshells might provide cues that would attract predators to the nest; (2) later-hatching eggs might become encapsulated, the young in hatching eggs thus becoming trapped inside a double shell (termed "egg-capping" by Derrickson and Warkentin 1991); (3) sharp edges of shells ...